David Wood - NMU English

David Houston Wood, Ph.D., currently serves as NMU English Department Head and Distinguished Professor of English. He teaches Renaissance, medieval, and classical literature and drama for the NMU English Department, the NMU Honors Program, and the NMU Department of Theatre & Dance, for which he recently directed a Kennedy Center Award-winning production of Oscar Wilde’s brilliant tragedy, Salome (2023). The winner of the Michigan Association of State Universities' “2017 Distinguished Professor of the Year Award,” he is also honored to have earned Northern Michigan University’s “2015 Distinguished Faculty Award,” and its “2011 Excellence in Teaching Award.” 

Having published widely in top journals ranging from Shakespeare Yearbook to Renaissance Drama; from Prose Studies to Interfaces; from Disability Studies Quarterly to the Blackwell Literature-Compass Online, he is also the author of a monograph titled Time, Narrative, and Emotion in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2009), and the co-editor of two essay collections, both completed with Allison P. Hobgood (Willamette University): the first, a special issue of the journal Disability Studies Quarterly, titled Disabled Shakespeares (free online at www.dsq-sds.org [29.4 Fall 2009]); and the second, Recovering Disability in Early Modern England (The Ohio State UP, 2013). David has given recent invited talks at venues such as the Eastern Washington University’s “Discussions on Disability” (2018), the University of Michigan’s “Early Modern Colloquium” (2014), and Willamette University’s “Liberal Arts Colloquium” (2012).

In addition to the Greco-Roman dramatic and epic material he regularly teaches for his “Honors 101— Antiquities” and “Honors 111— Shakespeare on Film” courses, he has recently led a number of graduate seminars for NMU’s English Department, as well. Some of his courses include:

• “Shakespeare’s Metatheatrical Theatre” (Winter 2024)
• “Shakespeare and Disability Studies” (Winter 2016)
• “Shakespeare and the Wars of the Roses” (Winter 2013)
• “Geoffrey Chaucer: Gender, Power, and Authority” (Winters: 2020, 2018)
• “John Milton: Poetics, Polemics, and Politics” (Winters: 2023, 2018, 2017, 2012, 2009)
• “Literature and Disability Studies” (Fall 2011)
• “Shakespeare’s Marlowe” (Winter 2022, 2011)
• “Renaissance Sexualities” (Winter 2009)

David lives in Marquette, MI, with his wife (Vicki), his three children (Maddie, Henry, and Nate), two wild dogs (Rozzy & Juniper), and a funky tabby cat (Wedge); he is also a proud winner of The New Yorker magazine’s cartoon caption contest (#111).

“Gifts, Commodities, and Social Customs from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Lowery’s The Green Knight.” Conveying the Renaissance: A Tribute to Charles S. Ross. U of Delaware P., 2025. 

“Accessing Shakespeare in Performance: Northern Michigan University’s Stratford Festival Endowment.” Inclusive Shakespeares: Identity, Pedagogy, and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

“Disability, ‘Enslavement,’ and Slavery: Affective Historicism and Fletcher and Massinger’s A Very Woman.” Routledge Companion to Literature and Emotion. Patrick Hogan and Bradley Irish, eds. New York: Routledge, 2022.

"Early Modern Disability and Literature." Co-written with Allison P Hobgood. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability. Clare Barker and Stuart Murray, eds. Cambridge University Press (2017).